


keeping the stars apart

by pheonix85



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Far from home speculation, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), ffh speculation, look i'm just trying to get ahead of this and put Endgame behind me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 17:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18722026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pheonix85/pseuds/pheonix85
Summary: Nick Fury follows Peter to Europe. Peter's not quite sure what to do with that,Endgame Spoilers included.





	keeping the stars apart

**Author's Note:**

> i'm just trying to get past Endgame, y'all. This is just a quick spec for FFH based on the one trailer that dropped a few months ago, knowing what we know now. i wrote this super quick last night thinking about it; i basically don't really trust marvel anymore and am worried how they're gonna handle everything with Tony so. hopefully it works!

All Peter had wanted to do was enjoy his senior vacation.

 

That is the thought that runs through his head when he tumbles onto the roof of a building in Venice, folding into a roll, springing to his feet. The guy with the fishbowl for a head---Mysterio---is folded upon the ground, knocked unconscious by the fall. Peter pauses for a moment, catching his breath, trying to ignore the chatter in his ear.

 

There’d been a lot of that the past few months. He had sworn this all off then, after everything with Thanos. A few months ago, just looking at the suits had made him feel ill. What had happened on Titan and then back home, it’d made him physically sick; like all his insides had been scooped out and he was empty now, with nothing left and nothing much else he wanted, except to never put that suit on again.

 

The suit that Mr. Stark had made for him. He’d tried, once, for May, for the fundraiser, but everyone had wanted to shake his hand and tell him how thankful they were and he’d ended up crying in the bathroom with Karen trying to make him feel better.

 

He just wanted to put it all behind him. 

 

Peter remembers seeing the photo in the cabin, a few weeks after the funeral. He was visiting, as he promised Pepper, to get to know Morgan and help out around the house and he’d been surprised, to find it in their kitchen, up on a shelf, just at eye level.

 

“He missed you so much,” Pepper had said, a soft smile on her face. “He would’ve done anything to get you back.”

 

And Tony had. Knowing that had kept Peter up too many nights, and when Happy or Pepper tried to talk him into taking his suit with him to Europe--- _just in case_ \---he’d adamantly refused but it had been May of all people who had snuck it into his bags. 

 

And now he's here. On a roof in Venice, Ned covering for him back at the hotel and him wracking his brain trying to figure out how he was gonna explain whatever bruises and bumps this guy might leave him with.

 

Mysterio starts to stir.

 

Fury is in his ear, yelling orders at him. And he knows he should listen because with Mr. Stark gone, Fury is pretty much the guy he’s gonna need to give him top cover if he wants to keep being Spiderman, something that seemed impossible a few weeks ago.

 

Because he wants to. God, it feels good. He doesn’t want it to, but it feels so good to be back in the suit, jumping and swinging and fighting these bad guys but now it’s gone sideways. Fury’s voice is in his ear, now, angry and insistent.

 

“ **Shoot him, Parker!** ”

 

  
Harsh. Unyielding. Judgmental, like if Peter doesn’t fucking ice this guy right now he’s gonna be in trouble. Peter steps back, the director’s word awakening something within him he thought was probably gone forever. 

 

“I’m not gonna do that, Mr. Fury.”

 

The director howls on the other end of the line and severs the connection. 

 

“You’re you,” Tony told him once, pressing his finger into his chest. “And at the end of the day, ideally, the only person that has to live with the decisions you make? Is you. So make the ones truest to yourself.”

 

Peter knows it’s not exactly true. He knows Mr. Stark didn’t mean for when he was in real danger, when he’d need to maybe do what he needed to keep himself or others safe. He knows that Tony meant it to be a conscience type of thing and he reaches up and pulls the earpiece from the side of his head, throwing it to the ground and stomping it to pieces. 

 

_ It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Parker. _

 

Peter’s senses had flared back in the hotel room. Immediately, they’d assumed danger, and all of the muscles in his body had tightened when he’d turned to face the source of the voice. Ned was on the ground and Peter was ready to fight and then there was Nick Fury, Director of the newly revived SHIELD and, somehow, he was in their hotel room.

 

Peter had called Pepper immediately once Fury had left, just to ask, and she’d clucked her tongue and he could hear her uncertainty. 

 

“I don’t know Peter.  Tony wasn’t real keen on the idea of you ever meeting him…”

 

“I know but---” _But Tony isn’t here_ , he'd wanted to say, but that hurt too much so he shifted. “But he’s kinda in my lobby and I have to figure this out so…”

 

“Yeah, yeah I know.”

 

Peter could practically see her rubbing her brow. He typed in a few goofy emojis and told her not to worry, that he’d handle it. And in a few minutes, he’d run downstairs and Fury had thrown him a bag and told him to get changed.

 

And now here they were.

 

Peter wasn’t sure what was happening. It had been an insane couple of days, with this Mysterio guy appearing to help with these bad guys made of sand and water and wind and fire. He couldn’t lie, it had been nice to have the assist, but then things had turned strange and a little too convenient.

 

The black suit was fitted with web shooters but there was also a holster for a gun that Fury had given him. It had made him deeply uncomfortable; tying someone up and leaving them for the police was one thing, but Peter wasn’t an agent and he didn’t want to be. He’d never fired a gun and he kind of wanted to keep it that way. Spiderman didn’t kill people, as long as he could help it.

 

There was a lot of stuff Peter didn’t know. There was a lot of stuff that Peter wasn’t even sure of anymore. Everything that had happened with Thanos and Mr. Stark had shifted something within him and he finds himself questioning almost everything but **_he knows_** he doesn’t want to be a killer and he feels a surge of resolve when he decides he’s not going to let Fury make him into one.

 

He swings through the city, up onto the top of an old church building and perches on its roof. Mysterio had disappeared into a fog when he’d removed the magazine and thrown the gun away, and Peter was sure contacting Fury again right now would be a mistake.

 

He would take the suit away, Peter’s sure of it. But that was alright; he still had the one Mr. Stark had made for him, and it still worked fine.

 

“There’s a bunch of them, actually,” Pepper had told him a few months ago. “You know how he was. He saved all of them...just in case. And there’s still the Iron Spider one as well.”   
  


Peter wasn’t sure he would ever be okay with that suit again. There was too much tied to it, and he couldn’t even look at it without feeling sick, without remembering the smell of burnt flesh and that distant, lost look in Mr. Stark’s eyes. 

 

Maybe he doesn’t need Fury’s help. He has the other Avengers now, they’ve all offered to be there if he needs it. When all was said and done, even Mr. Stark had said he’d done well with the web shooters himself, and Pepper was willing to give him access to what he needed. 

 

Peter remembers hearing something or reading something once, about how the ones that we love are never really gone because we carry the memory of them in our hearts. It seemed like sentimental bullshit at the time, but now he’s not so sure; the moment Fury’s voice crackled in his ear, it wasn’t Fury he saw in his mind, but Tony.

 

Peter stares up at the moon. He’s by himself, so he lets himself cry and drops his head into his hands but it’s not all bad this time, which is nice. 

 

It’s the first time since that day at the Compound that Peter can feel him.

 

Peter’s been so afraid to put the suit on, worried about the memories and the ache that he hasn’t thought about all the good stuff either. About the adjustments, Mr. Stark had made to Karen, just because he’d asked during those long nights in the lab. How Mr. Stark had customized all of this, just for him, to keep him safe, to make sure he’d succeed. 

 

“You’re gonna go far, kid,” Tony said to him once, shortly after Pepper and he had announced his engagement. “You’ve got a good heart and a good head on your shoulders, it’s a mean combination. Don’t ever change.”

 

Peter wipes his face and stands on the end of the roof, mask in his hands. It’s already late and he needs to get back to the hotel, it’s not fair to Ned. He knows there is more to come with Mysterio; he hasn’t quite figured it out, but he’s almost certain it’s going to get worse before it gets better, especially now that Fury is sure to be mad at him.

 

He’s not all that worried though. Not anymore.

 

Because the people that you love only really die if you let them, if you forget them, if you stop carrying them with you.

 

And Peter wasn’t about to do that.

 


End file.
